French translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire and the Brief Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire

Abstract

Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are important clinical devices for evaluating injuries and surgeries of the hand. However, some of the most widely used questionnaires, such as the MHQ and bMHQ, are currently unavailable in French, which prevents them from being used in the French Canadian province of Quebec as well as in other French-speaking nations. We therefore intend to develop valid and culturally adapted French translations of the afore-mentioned questionnaires. Two independent bilingual translators converted all English questionnaires to French. Two distinct translators then translated the French versions back to English in reverse-blinded fashion. Discrepancies between the original and second English versions were examined by a committee of four bilingual healthcare professionals before final French translations of all documents were produced. Thirty patients bilingual in French and English were then asked to complete the original and French versions of the MHQ and bMHQ. Their answers were compared in order to assess the accuracy of our translation. In light of these findings, revised French versions were produced. French versions of the MHQ and bMHQ questionnaires produced metrological qualities of validity and fidelity with an inter-class correlation superior to 0.90 and a kappa coefficient of 0.81 to 1. Clinical applicability revealed the distribution of scores according to disease process was reproducible between the English and French versions. PROM translation requires a rigorous process in order to achieve strong metrological qualities in both the original and translated versions. We produced French translations of the MHQ and bMHQ by abiding to the Beaton method of cross-cultural adaptation of self-reported measures.